


Night Out

by Fudgyokra



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alcohol, Awkward Conversations, Bros Bein Bros, Dialogue Heavy, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, Funny, Humor, I mean not really tbh, Love Confessions, M/M, but i tried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 19:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10042808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fudgyokra/pseuds/Fudgyokra
Summary: Rhys and Fiona finally begin to bond after a rocky start. Later, secrets are blown and things get awkward.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly this is terrible but I needed to write it or it was gonna bug me forever. 100th fanfic! That means I have been doing this way too long lmao.

He didn’t remember who had suggested he and Fiona spend some quality time together, but it certainly wasn’t something either of them would have come up with on their own. As it currently stood, they sat at the bar with an empty stool between them, each of them glaring into the distance while their drinks were being prepared. The rest of their friends, jumping at the chance to get them at least semi-alone, were occupied with devouring burgers at the table furthest from them.

Between such compliments as “Pandoran thug” and “Hyperion fucktoy,” the bonding efforts were obviously falling flat, even as the evening progressed.

The bartender approached and looked between them with his bushy brows raised. After a second, he slid a pink cocktail toward Fiona and a pint of lager toward Rhys. “One pint and one Sex on the Beach,” he announced to get their attention.

Without looking at each other, Rhys and Fiona passed their drinks to each other to correct the order. The bartender watched without comment as Rhys sipped daintily from his cocktail and Fiona began chugging the lager.

“What’re you looking at?” the former mumbled, prompting the man to turn around and resume his usual business.

Fiona slammed her empty cup down in a startlingly short amount of time, and Rhys couldn’t help but laugh at the barkeep’s concerned expression. The laughter caught on, and pretty soon Rhys was scooting into the empty seat they’d put between each other and asking the girl how she ever learned to chug that fast.

“On the streets you learn things quick,” she replied, beaming.

An hour later they were several drinks deep into a lengthy conversation about relationships, where Rhys dropped the bomb. “At this point in my life I didn’t think I’d be wasting time pining.”

Fiona leaned in toward him, a smile curling her lips. By the time Rhys realized what he’d said, she’d already pounced. “I didn’t think you were capable of having feelings for anyone but yourself,” she said, her expression turning from amused to beseeching. “You have to tell me. I gotta know.”

“Don’t go making a big deal about this,” he started, ducking his head a little, “but he came to the bar with us today.”

Fiona glanced toward the corner table their friends occupied and regarded August and Vaughn with suspicious eyes. “Well if it’s August I question your tastes,” she said, turning back around to offer Rhys a knowing smile.

The man snorted a laugh and waved the bartender over for another drink. Fiona leaned her elbows on the counter. “Listen, he’s your best friend,” she said, her mirthful expression becoming almost laughably serious when compared to her words, “and if you want to hit it so bad why don’t you woman up and say so.”

“It’s not just that,” Rhys said, looking almost forlorn, “it’s way worse than that.”

In her tipsy state, Fiona took a second to process this. Once she had, however, she couldn’t stop teasing. “Oh no, _feelings_. Tell him, tell him,” she repeated, beginning an annoying mantra not unlike how a frat boy would dare a friend to hit the keg.

“Believe me,” Rhys said, “as much as I’d like to tell Vaughn how stupidly in love with him I am, I really _really_ can’t do that.” He could see the rebuttal rising on Fiona’s tongue, but before she could get the words out, her eyes drifted to the side and she abruptly smacked her lips shut. When Rhys turned, he saw precisely what he’d been hoping not to see: Vaughn standing there looking at him, doing a pretty spot-on impression of a deer in headlights.

“I, uh…” Fiona began awkwardly, gesturing behind her with her thumb. “I gotta go make a phone call.”

“Fiona!” Rhys pleaded, but the words fell on deaf ears; the woman was already out of hearing range by the time he’d twisted back around in his seat to face her for help.

“I was, um…coming to ask how it was going with Fiona,” Vaughn said, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “Pretty well, I take it?”

Rhys wanted to die. “Yeah… Pretty well. We, uh, have more in common than I thought.”

As though life were taunting him, everything just went downhill from there. Seconds into the horribly thick, silent tension between them, the roiling weather outside finally came to a head, trapping them all inside the bar with a heavy torrent of rain.

“I guess we gotta call a cab,” Sasha said, making both men jump with the way she suddenly materialized behind them.

The cab could not come quickly enough. Rhys stood near the front of the building with Sasha while the rest of their group convened at the table again, and when Sasha got the call he was the first one out the door.

“Hey,” Sasha objected, pushing him aside as she approached the yellow car. “I called, I get the passenger seat.”

Rhys grumbled and walked around to get in the back, joined moments later by Vaughn and then Fiona. The latter regarded August, who stood outside drenched and fuming, with a smirk. “Sorry, looks like you’re stuck.”

August curled his lip. “Kiss my ass,” he said, and jammed his way into the back seat, crushing everyone against one another until they were practically one cohesive, soaking mass.

“Sasha! You’re smaller,” Rhys practically begged, feeling really out of luck with a dead silent Vaughn pressing into his side, practically in his lap. “Why don’t you switch places with me. I got out here first.”

Sasha offered a cheerful answer to the negative and Rhys mumbled when the cab pulled away from the bar, leaving it behind them in its mist-obscured neon haze.

When the car arrived at the sisters’ meager apartment, they all poured out of the vehicle and waited for a tipsy Fiona to dig her keys out of her purse. After a moment she managed to let them all in, and it wasn’t long after that that August hit the couch, blackout drunk.

Fiona and Sasha heaved twin sighs. The latter spoke, “Wake me when everyone’s gone, okay?” Her sister nodded and watched her disappear into her bedroom.

Fiona looked between Rhys and Vaughn with a sly expression. “So, as much as I love a good threesome, I’m tappin’ out tonight, all right, boys?”

Vaughn smiled, relieved at the humor. “Good night, Fiona. Thanks for letting us crash here.”

“Any time,” she said with a wink and an amicable pat on the back. “The dryer is behind the kitchen if you wanna…y’know.” She gestured toward their soaking clothes and Vaughn nodded.

“Yeah, I got it. Thanks.”

“We don’t have a pallet or anything.” Fiona rubbed the back of her neck. “I mean, I’ll bunk with Sasha if you two want to share my bed.”

Rhys closed his eyes and concentrated on not smacking her in the face. “The floor is fine, thanks. Wouldn’t want to take your bed from you when you’ve been so _nice_ to us already.”

Fiona gave him a sideways smile. “Right. I’ll leave it open just in case.”

“Thanks, Fiona,” Vaughn said quickly, cutting off Rhys’s rising objection. “We owe you big time for your hospitality.”

Fiona flapped a hand as if to wave the topic away. “Sleep tight, boys.”

Presently, August snored loudly and Fiona took that as her cue to disappear.

Without speaking, Vaughn headed toward the washer and dryer, which were tucked neatly in a tiny, tiled area right behind the kitchen as Fiona had said.

Rhys felt like he was trying to defuse a bomb as he casually joined his side and shimmied his soaked vest off. “Good night out, huh?” he asked, trying to concentrate on not slurring.

Vaughn, who was not nearly as drunk, shot him a sweet smile. “It looks like you had more fun than I did.”

When Rhys tried to laugh, it came out more like a monotonous “ha ha ha” than anything sincere. “Isn’t August usually the life of the party?”

“Eh.” Vaughn made a so-so motion with his hand and started unbuttoning his shirt. “Mostly he bitched about stuff. He’s kind of an angry drunk.”

“Better than a flirty drunk,” Rhys said, thoughts settled squarely on an awkward moment between he and Vasquez at last year’s office Christmas function. He only meant it lightly, but Vaughn’s resulting expression was dour.

“You are…so right,” he said, tone hard to interpret. He dumped his shirt into the dryer and knelt down to remove his shoes and socks.

Rhys did the same, trying to back-track and fix whatever he’d just fucked up. What he ended up saying was not only _not_ fixing anything, but making it exponentially worse with every word. “I mean, I’m a flirty drunk. But I don’t _mean_ it, you know? Is that better or worse?”

Vaughn took a long breath through his nose. “Worse,” he said flatly.

_Shit._

Rhys cleared his throat. “What I mean is, uh, I don’t mean to be flirty around…I dunno, people?”

“As opposed to robots?” Vaughn stood, threw his socks into the machine, and reached for the button of his slacks. Rhys felt way worse about the conversation now than he had a few seconds ago. Perhaps these things were related.

“No! What I mean is…” He made a vaguely circular motion with his hand, counting on Vaughn, as always, to come up with the words he couldn’t conjure himself. And Vaughn, as kind as he was, sighed and allowed himself to smile again.

“You don’t mean to be flirty with strangers. I know.”

“Or anyone!”

The smile disappeared again and Vaughn repeated, in a significantly more annoyed tone, “I know.”

“Wait, wait, no.” Rhys extended his arm to touch Vaughn’s hand as he dropped his pants into the dryer with the rest of his clothes. Now that one of them was in his underwear and the other was still wearing two layers of freezing, soaked clothes, things did not seem to be getting any less weird.

“Trust me, I know what you’re gonna say,” the man belonging to the former category said. “And I get it. What you said back there was a mistake. I’m not going to fault you for being drunk, man.”

“Really?” Rhys asked, relieved. “Thanks, bro.”

“I’m not dumb enough to think you actually meant it,” Vaughn replied with a snort, looking away and focusing on nothing in particular.

_Oh._

For a moment, Rhys weighed his options as far as responses went. What was the right thing to say here?

A: Nothing.

B: Meant what?

C: I did mean it.

It took a while, but eventually he went with C. C, he discovered, was not the correct option. Vaughn, for the first time Rhys had ever seen him, looked pissed. “Rhys, shut _up_. I’m your friend, you don’t have to say that shit to me. Just let it go and we can forget this ever happened.”

Rhys persisted, desperately (embarrassingly) clutching Vaugh’s arm with both hands. “I’m serious, dude. I didn’t mean to say it like that. I didn’t mean for you to walk up. I didn’t even see you coming.”

Vaugh’s anger cleared, slowly turning to skepticism. “You didn’t?”

“No! Why would I say that if I _knew_ you were gonna hear it?” He watched with some interest as his best friend’s face turned guilty.

“I—I don’t know. To mess with me?”

Rhys felt way, way guiltier than Vaughn looked. They sat in silence for an agonizingly long time before he offered an earnest, “I wouldn’t do that to you.” He let go of Vaughn’s arm. Silence came again, this time less awkward and more reflective. He finally remembered he was supposed to be undressing, but for some reason couldn’t remember why that was.

“So what you’re telling me is…” Vaughn wouldn’t meet his eyes for a second, but when he did he looked scarily vulnerable and, in his drunk state, Rhys wasn’t sure he wanted to be in charge of that vulnerability.

“Is…I love you?” His voice cracked a little, and he tried to smooth it over with a forced smile.

Vaughn, to his surprise, began to laugh. Tentatively, Rhys joined along. “You’re kidding! You’re… _you_ , Rhys,” the former said. “And I’m, I dunno, me?”

“And?”

“You could have any—you could date a model if you wanted, and you want to… You’d choose _me_ of all people?” When he looked back up at him, his eyes were shiny behind his glasses.

Rhys’s fake smile faded into a truer, goofier version. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think you’re gorgeous.”

Again, Vaughn laughed. “I think you’re ridiculous.”

“So…” Rhys’s inhibited speech function fought to catch up with his brain. “Does this mean we’re like…” He gestured between them with a finger and watched Vaughn flush red all the way down to his chest.

“I guess?” It came out more as a question, but he looked genuinely happy at the prospect. “Uh, wow.”

“Yeah,” Rhys repeated. He looked around the entire room, nervous about settling his gaze on any one spot. “So, to clarify, this means you like me back?”

Vaughn snorted. “We’re not high-schoolers, Rhys.”

“Yeah, but…”

Vaughn seemed to register that this was as far as that statement was going to go and rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Yes, it means I like you back.”

“That’s pretty awesome,” Rhys told him, cocking his head to the side a little. “And that means we are definitely going to share that bed, right?”

Vaughn smiled. “Oh, yeah.”


End file.
